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From abolishing English in primary sections in 1984, the state has finally taken the significant step of opening English medium sections in government schools — albeit in the higher secondary section.
From the academic year 2010, 15 government and government sponsored schools will have a separate English medium section in science and commerce streams.
Of these 15 institutions, 10 are government schools and five are government affiliated institutions. The state is inspecting over 40 other schools to start similar facilities soon.
In the current phase, the chosen schools include Ballygunje Government School, Multipurpose Government Girls School, Alipore, Sakhawat Memorial Girls School and Bethune Collegiate School.
According to school education minister Partha De, there is a strong demand among students to study in English medium. The listed schools already have adequate infrastructure and draws the best students of the city.
The teachers' associations welcome the decision, but insist on an upgrade of infrastructure and faculty. "We want the vacant posts be filled up quickly by the PSC," said Dipak Das, general secretary of West Bengal Government School Teachers Association.
"There are many other schools like Hindu School and Hare School, in which an English medium section can be set up, but infrastructure and number of teachers is an issue.”
With the same bottlenecks in mind, the government decided to have the separate section at the higher secondary level instead of the primary and secondary levels.
Back in 1984, in a controversial move, the government had abolished English from the primary section in all Bengali-medium government and government-aided schools.
Following vehement protests from all quarters, English returned to Class V in 1992, Class III in 1998 and finally in 2003, it was decided that the subject will be taught Class I onwards.
Thereafter, the government decided on a vocabulary-based approach instead of a grammar-based approach. It also came up with a set of specially designed books to help teachers to teach in class and converse in English.
The proposal to start an English medium section in government schools had to face stiff opposition from the Left Front’s constituent parties.
But the government finally decided to take the plunge this year.
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Those who are opposing the english medium school,they should send their children to bengali medium school first and set an example.Starting with former CM Mr.Jyoti basy to today, everybody is sending theit children to english medium school.They want that their children should get better education and other should not deserve it.It must be made mandetory to send the children of minister and civil servent to bengali medium schoo first.Then everything will change and they will think before forming any tughloki law which is pulling down the bengali society in all India level of competition.They are only encouraging big private school to do better business by eleminiting english from school.Because capable parents do not have any other option other but to send to private school for development of their children.